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One of My Favourite Pasta Dishes

This is one of my favourite pasta dishes of all time. Let me tell you why – It’s quick, It’s simple (I think my boyfriend could even make it… well maybe if I left the pumpkin already chopped for him), It uses ingredients which I usually have on hand already which makes it great for those nights when you are short on time and can’t decide what to cook… AND it has pumpkin in it which I LOVE (If you haven’t already picked up on that, have you been paying attention at all!?!)

Speaking of pumpkins, I finally made myself a mosaic for the Flickr game which has been going around for a while now. OK, so the connection between pumpkins and the Flickr game might not be quite so obvious, but as you can see ‘Pumpkin’ was my answer for the second question of the quiz! For a full list of the questions you need to make a mosaic and play along for yourself, just click on mine below.

Anyway, back to the food! I have been making this dish for so long now that I don’t even remember where it came from originally. It was probably from some food magazine many years ago, or maybe a cookbook. Either way, it is a quick standby meal and I am sending it over to Presto Pasta Nights, which now has a brand new home! Also, Ruth is enlisting the help of some guest hosts at the moment, with this weeks being Kevin from Closet Cooking. I’m looking forward to his round-up later this week.

Pumpkin PastaServes 4

Cut 1/2 a butternut pumpkin into 2cm cubes. Place in a large saucepan of boiling water along with 500g penne pasta and cook for as long as the pasta packet suggests. If you have a basket to separate the pasta from the pumpkin while it is in the water it will make the process a lot easier, but if you don’t that’s fine too – you can just pick it out. Meanwhile, fry 1 large onion, diced & 2 crushed garlic cloves in a saucepan with 1Tbsp olive oil until softened.

Drain pasta and pumpkin, set pumpkin aside in a bowl, return pasta to pan and leave off the heat. Mash pumpkin and add enough light cream to make a sauce consistency, season with salt & pepper. Add pumpkin, onions, 1Tbsp margarine & 2Tbsp chopped herbs (rosemary, basil, thyme or sage for example) to drained pasta, return to heat and mix thoroughly until heated through. Serve topped with shaved parmesan.

I’m glad you liked it Jaye, it has been one of my quick dinner options for years now. I really can’t believe that pumpkin is not embraced in savoury dishes in many other countries, I just can’t get my head around that! They really are missing out… poor buggers..